à¹Û©ÛÛ©á¦ Travelogue à¹Û©ÛÛ©á¦

Sunday, July 14, 1996

Beijing 1996

Blogger is just fantastic! I can date my entries way way back in 1996. Why, I don't even know if blogs like these existed in 1996!

Anyway, this, being my very first entry in my travelogue, is not going to be very illustrative or narrative. In fact, there is not going to be any photographs at all. Reason being,

I did not have a digital camera in 1996.
I'm too lazy to dig the photographs for scanning.
I'm too fugly in the photos 10 years ago.

Let's just stop at that and start on my China trip.

It was in fact, a school trip organized by my secondary school Chinese Orchestra group. You see, we had yearly overseas performances and Chinese Orchestra being Chinese, we always ended up in China.

This was in fact my first time traveling with my fellow schoolmates and naturally, I was very excited! Excited at the prospect of being independent, of being able to spend quality fun time with my fellow schoolmates, of being able to experience a different culture, but of course not very excited at the prospect of long hours of rehearsing.

I remembered that almost 80% of the plane was infested with our whole cohort of Chinese Orchestra members. I say infested because we really were a noisy bunch. We walked around and laughed like nobody's business. We took photographs despite the stewardess's attempt in asking us to remain seated. It was as if the whole plane was a private plane meant for us. If I was some random passenger out of the remaining 20%, I would have fainted on the spot with all the rowdiness.

I couldn't really remember the places we went to. I could faintly remember climbing the Great Wall of China. I think I still have the certificate somewhere in my house. Most of the other places were scenic views of China. So there.

It was also freezing cold then, and we were told to wear loads of clothing. I could remember we passed by a river which was just starting to defrost. The surface was still a thin layer of ice. Without thinking, I rested my foot on that thin layer of ice and it broke, leaving my entire leg in that freezing ice cold river water. I was the laughing stock of many. Haiz.

If I did not remember wrongly, the entire trip lasted for 5 days. Out of the 5 days, we spent 2 days at some rural area called "Chengde". The journey from Beijing to Chengde by bus took about 4-5 hours. On the way, we had stopovers for people to use the toilets. I think their toilets aka 茅厕 totally cannot make it. Let's call it "a cultural experience".

In my memory, I think I was somehow traumatized by Chengde. The moment we reached the hotel, we were greeted by an eerie looking hotel with green lights and huge trees overshadowing it. Can you imagine green lights?! It was as if we were part of a haunted hotel movie casting. The corridors were dark and dreary, with almost no hotel attendants. The keys to our hotel rooms didn't work. The pictures hanging in our hotel rooms were of cemeteries and ghost busting 钟馗. We were indeed VERY traumatized and spent the whole night cuddled together as a group in one of the less scary rooms.

Alas! I fell sick that night. I didn't even remember much of what happened that night since I was drifting in and out of sleep, deep in fever. I realised how many times better Beijing was, and I felt instantly better once I returned to Beijing.

Back in Beijing, I wanted to ask for a teaspoon from the hotel attendant to drink my medicine. I said, "可以给我一只汤匙吗?". The hotel attendant looked at me with a puzzled look as if I'm talking Yiddish. And I repeated, "可以给我一只汤匙吗？我要喝药水的?" I know how bad my Mandarin is, my friend is always commenting that I cheated to get my A1 in Chinese, and that it should have been 茶匙 instead of 汤匙 or whatsoever, but don't Singaporeans all lump it into one word like 汤匙?

Nevertheless, the hotel attendant finally took some light of what I was asking and said, "噢，你是要勺子是吗？我拿给你。" By then, I was quite desperate that she didn't understand what I was asking, so I just said ok. A few moments later, I panicked and asked my friend what would happen if she really did bring a 勺子 aka ladle to me. How the hell am I going to drink my medicine with a ladle?? Alas, she brought the correct spoon to me. Wahaha~ Let's call it a cultural experience.

Although I would never say I would love to visit Chengde again, I guess I wouldn't say no to other parts of China. After all, China is such a vast country. I would love to try Shanghai, but till then!

always me @ 10:34 PM | 1 comments